1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to nonionic surfactants which are mixtures of alcohols which have been polyalkoxylated, and detergent compositions containing these surfactants.
2. Statement of Related Art
The alkylphenol ethoxylates widely used today as nonionic surfactant components show considerably better low-temperature behavior (lower pour point and cold cloud point) than comparable ethoxylates based on linear fatty alcohols. Among the alkylphenol ethoxylates, the nonylphenol-10 E.O.-adduct (NP-10) is distinguished by such excellent performance properties that it constitutes not only a universally useable surfactant for detergents and cleaning preparations, but also an emulsifier for various technical applications. In addition, this surfactant has very good degreasing properties both on metals and on fabrics. By virtue of these favorable properties, NP-10 is today quantitatively by far the most important representative of the alkylphenol ethoxylates.
The disadvantage of the alkylphenol ethoxylates is their poor environmental compatibility, so that considerable efforts are being made to replace this basically very valuable surfactant component at least partly by components showing improved environmental compatibility. Alkoxylated fatty alcohols of natural and/or synthetic origin are an obvious choice in this regard. However, their use involves the following difficulty: ether alcohols of the type just mentioned only show the hydrophilic data required in practice (for example, cloud point in the range 50.degree. to 60.degree. C.) in forms in which the ether alcohols as such are solid at room temperature. This imposes a significant limitation on efforts to replace the alkylphenol adducts by adducts of primary fatty alcohols.